New York Academy of Art Opens its Summer Exhibition 2009 Juried by Eric Fischl, Matthew Flowers and Anne Strauss

Jennifer Presant, Sunburst, 2009.

NEW YORK, NY.-The New York Academy of Art will open its annual Summer Exhibition. The exhibition comprises 123 works by current students and alumni including paintings, drawings, limited-edition prints and sculpture. It opens at the Academy with a public reception on Tuesday, June 2nd, from 6  8 pm. The show will run from June 3rd to August 2nd, Monday through Friday, 1  7 pm, Saturday, 12  5:30 pm, or by appointment. It is free and open to the public. All works are available for purchase.

A highly anticipated annual event at the Academy, the Summer Exhibition this year makes a particularly strong case for the reemergent emphasis on figuration and drawing. The work exhibited was selected from over 550 submissions by jurors Eric Fischl (artist and Senior Critic at the Academy), Matthew Flowers (Flowers Gallery, London) and Anne Strauss (Curator, Metropolitan Museum of Art).

Each year the jury selects one work to receive a grand prize; this year the Academy congratulates Jennifer Presant (MFA 2002), winner of the grand prize for her painting Sunburst (shown above). She is awarded a residency on the island of St. Barths, including roundtrip airfare.

Modeled on the annual Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, which dates back to 1796, the New York Academy of Arts exhibition similarly aims to showcase the talents of its constituency and launch its recently minted artists. A number of artists who have exhibited in Summer Exhibitions past have been recruited by galleries in New York, Los Angeles and abroad, including Tony Shafrazi and Leslie Tonkonow, and featured in art fairs around the globe, including Art Basel, Art Basel Miami and Scope. Past SUMMER EXHIBITION jurists include Jenny Saville, Will Cotton and David Salle.